


Five Minutes and Twenty Five Seconds

by gouguruheddo



Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gouguruheddo/pseuds/gouguruheddo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisuke confides in an old friend to sort out his feelings for Ken. Older-verse. One-shot. Daisuke x Ken</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Minutes and Twenty Five Seconds

**tatumsaid: sup loser**

**gouguruheddo: nm jerk. how bout u**

**tatumsaid: just finished class. this year is going to kill me, i swear.**

**gouguruheddo: 2 weeks right?**

**tatumsaid: luckily. then it’s summer vacation for the rest of my life.**

** gouguruheddo: sad news 4 u. work 4ever. **

**tatumsaid: more like 5ever**

**gouguruheddo: lol**

**tatumsaid: you excited for summer?**

**gouguruheddo: hell ya. cant wait to visit! kens excited 2.**

**tatumsaid: ahah! good good. i can’t wait to see you both. how’s ken doing, anyway?**

**gouguruheddo: good**

**tatumsaid: just good?**

**gouguruheddo: yeah**

**tatumsaid: davis… what’s up?**

**gouguruheddo: nothing nothing**

**tatumsaid: don’t make me facetime it out of you. you know i’ll win. i always do.**

**gouguruheddo: do not. its nothing**

Tatum pushed herself back into the cheap futon and sighed. Of course it was nothing. Fucking liar. She threw her phone across the flat furniture and scooped up the television remote from the coffee table. It took her a few dozen clicks on the remote to remember that she didn’t have cable. Rolling her eyes, she turned the television off and exchanged the controller for a good thick book.

Even there, she couldn’t find resolve. One, two, three... Four times she read the same sentence, and it still didn’t stick. She thumbed the edge of the book, the pages purring in her hands, and the faint scent of old paper wafting to her nose.

It annoyed her. It annoyed her with Daisuke lied to her. They’d been friends for how long? What the hell did he have to hide? They’d never been coy with each other--it just wasn’t in their contract. She eyed her phone, brow furrowed and her right canine pinching her bottom lip.

_Bzzt bzzt. Bzzt bzzt._

Tatum jumped back. Dropping the book into her lap, she immediately leaned over and snatched up her phone. Typing in her PIN, and swiping a few screens, she read the new message:

**gouguruheddo: i think i love ken**

It was involuntary. Her jaw came unhinged and hung open. Her thumb pressed into the screen of her phone until the colors bled around the pressure. A small sigh escaped out of her like a deflating balloon.

“What?” She said aloud to an empty apartment.

Tatum and Daisuke had been together for almost two years half a decade ago. They were “over” each other before they even broke up. Being half a world away was too difficult, and Digital World dates were hard to coordinate... But she had always thought that if distance wasn’t an issue, they’d be together.

Her hand dropped to her lap as she stared off into the corner of her apartment. Canvases--blank, half finished, completed--all stacked along the wall. Acrylics and oils and toolboxes sprawling out into the living room floor. Above the pile, hanging just a little crooked on the wall, was the cotton candy colored landscape she and Daisuke had painted on one of their first dates. There was a pang in her chest that she tried to squelch with nails across her thigh, but it didn’t work.

So what, she thought. So what if he’s gay? Michael was gay. Hell, maybe he wasn’t gay at all. She had friends from the whole LGBT spectrum--she went to art school. In New York City.

So why was she feeling so… Repulsed?

Setting the phone down at her side, her emotions ebbed. Regret. Sadness. Happiness? Jealousy. Definitely jealousy. Excitement. Repulsion again.

She sighed. What could she say? What did he want her to say? “Oh that’s great! Go for it, tiger!” And somewhere, she really did feel that. It wasn’t that easy of an answer, though. Not for him. She’d known him too long to know that guy friends didn’t just like their guy friends and have it be all right.

Daisuke was confiding in her, and she had no idea what to do.

The message sat on her phone uninterrupted for days. Neither of them had replied since Daisuke’s confession, and each day she felt a stone harden and sink in her stomach. It got to the point where she zoned out on an entire studio class. She couldn’t run anymore. It killed her that she couldn’t find the words to give him, or at least words that she could feel sincere about. However, three days was too long, and he deserved more than that.

**tatumsaid: want to talk?**

It didn’t take long for an answer.

**gouguruheddo: sure**

He answered on the third ring, just like he always did.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” Tatum said, softly and obviously unsure.

“I’m sorry.” Daisuke’s voice was low. “I…”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m sorry… I didn’t know… What to say.” She held her other ear shut with her finger, as she tried to hear Daisuke’s responses over the sound of the city around her.

“It’s okay. I didn’t know how to say it. I don’t know if it’s what…” Daisuke’s accent was thick, and he still had to stop and think about his words before he spoke often times. “Maybe, I’m just confused.”

Tatum found her way to a quietish edge of a building and rested her back against the concrete. “I don’t think so.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the Davis I know is always true to his emotions. It’s when he starts to overthink is when he starts to lie.”

There was a silence that lasted almost long enough for Tatum to think he had hung up. A hum passed across the line, and Daisuke said, “I guess.”

“Don’t guess.”

“He’s my best friend.”

“So?”

“It’s not… Right.” He sounded sad.

“Bullshit. You guys have been…” Tatum paused. There it was. The whole reason why she had been jealous--a jealousy that made her feel borderline disgusted with him… But mostly with herself. Had he always felt this way about Ken? Through all of his girlfriends--not just her--was he really planning to stay with any of them? Ken was his jogress partner. There was no way she could ever understand what that meant. The adventures they had had together, the moments they continued to share, the way he talked about Ken, both in words and demeanor.... She believed with every fiber of her being that Daisuke loved Ken. “You love him.”

Daisuke sighed. “What do I do now?”

Tatum looked up, the buildings at the intersection towering and pointing to one vocal point. She brought a her hand up to pinch her bottom lip between her index finger and thumb. “I’m not you. I can’t tell you that. That’s up to you. But… Davis?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ll be here for you. I promise.”

“I know. I know...” There was another sigh, shakey and nervous and threatening to break. “Thank you, Tate.”

“Of course. Love you, idiot.”

“Love you too, dummy.”

Five minutes and twenty five seconds. It didn’t solve anything. Daisuke was still hurting, and she still felt a remorseful negativity swimming inside her. But those five minutes and twenty five seconds exposed and important detail: that it wasn’t about how she felt, or what Daisuke really was, or what the future held, or what the past may have meant… Daisuke was who he was. Daisuke was her friend. And she would do whatever she could to be what he needed her to be in a time where he wasn’t sure who he was.

Love didn’t have to be romantic. Love didn’t have to be regular. She loved Daisuke, and she loved that he loved Ken. She would help him understand how beautiful that was. Hopefully, he could figure it out with due time.


End file.
